Introdution（前言）

Introdution

Imagine you're searching for an apartment in San Francisco——arguably the most harrowing American city in which to do so.

想象你在美国最令人痛苦的城市旧金山发掘生活。

The booming tech sector and tight zoning laws limiting new constrution have conspired to make the city just as expensive as New York,and by many accounts more competitive.

由于银行之间激增的竞争，大量爆发的技术领域和限制新事物的落后的地方法律导致这个城市像纽约一样生活艰难。

New listings go up and come down within minutes,open houer are mobbed, and ofter the keys end up in the hands of whoever can physically foist a deposit check on the landlord first.

股市行情动荡不堪，购买房子被强制要求必须先缴纳定金，这让人很苦恼。

Such a savage market leaves a little room for the kind of fact-finding and deliberation that is theoretically supposed to characterize the doings of the rational consumer.

理论上，足够理性的消费者在调研和观察后，也总能在这样一个残酷的市场里买到一个小小的房子。

Unlike, say, a mall patrol or an online shopper, who can compare options before making a decision, the would-be San Franciscan has to decide instantly either way: you can take the apartment you are currently looking at, forsaking all other, or you can walk away, never to return.

然而并不是这样的，一个希望定居旧金山，在线上线下货币三家之后的消费者说：你只能做两个选中，一是购买你目前能承担的公寓，然后断了其他念想。二是赶紧离开旧金山，再也不要回来。

Let's assume for a moment, for the sake of simplicity, that you care only about maximizing your chance of getting the very best apartment available.

让我们思考一下，对于最简单的目标来讲，你只是想要在你有限的选择里，选到一个最好的公寓，最大化自己的利益。

Your goal is reducing the twin, Scylla-and-Charybdis regrets of the "one that got away" and the "stone left unturned" to the absolute minimun.

你的目标是在其中做一个选择，Scylla和Charybdis 已经后悔做了一个让自己利益最小化的选择：“逃离”和“坚守”。

You run into a dilemma right off the bat: How are you to know that an apartment is indeed the best unless you have a baseline to judge it by?

这样你就陷入了一个死胡同，正确的选择似乎被狗叼走了：如果你不在你的底线上做出判断，你要如何肯定某个公寓就是最好的选择？

And how are you to establish that baseline unless you look at (and lose) a number of apartments?

那么你要如何建立你的底线？除非你只是在考虑（和舍弃）若干有限的公寓。

The more information you gather, the better you'll know the right opportunity when you see it——but the more likely you are to have already passed it by.

你搜集更多的信息，在机会来临的时候你才能更好地抓住——但是，更有可能你早就错过了。

So what do you do? How do you make an informed decition when the very act of informing it jeopardizes the outcome? It's a cruel situation, bordering on paradox.

所以你该做什么？当你得知一个会让你钱包变空的活动，你要怎么根据信息，做出合理的决定？这是一个矛盾、残酷的情况。